


Under Impossible Circumstances

by Silvanuyx



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Angst, Inhuman Cecil, Just buckets of it., Kind of mind control, M/M, Monster Cecil
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-23
Updated: 2014-02-23
Packaged: 2018-01-13 13:34:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1228312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silvanuyx/pseuds/Silvanuyx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Something's wrong with Cecil. He's loosing his human form and he can't control it. Carlos worries, and he's right to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Beta'd by my wonderful friend.

Carlos glanced up at Cecil as he stepped into the kitchen, then smiled. “Hard day?” he asked, pausing his chopping as he watched Cecil.

Cecil frowned. “Not particularly. Why?” he asked, tilting his head.

Carlos gestured at his own face. “You have your scary face on,” he said, referring to the black eyes and sharp teeth Cecil tended to sport when he was tired or just waking up.

Cecil sighed, and dragged his features back to normal. “I didn’t think today was that hard,” he retorted with a fluid shrug. “So what’s for dinner?”

\-----

The next evening was the same.

And the evening after that.

And the next as well.

“Carlos. I can’t change them back,” Cecil said, his voice a little frantic as he licked his teeth, and Carlos immediately focused on the tip of his tongue - or rather the tips of his tongue.

“Cecil, your tongue is forked,” he said with a frown, and stepped closer. “That isn’t normal,” he added unnecessarily.

Cecil looked at him and shook his head. “I don’t know what’s wrong,” he moaned, wringing his hands.

Carlos separated his hands and forced his own worried frown to a comforting smile. “We’ll figure this out. Everything will be fine,” he said comfortingly, although he couldn’t push back his concern.

\-----

The next morning, Cecil was sporting eight tentacles springing from his back, and his teeth were longer and sharper than Carlos had ever seen them.

“Cecil, I have to look at them,” Carlos pleaded, clearly exasperated at Cecil.

Cecil snapped his teeth at him again, tentacles arching over his back threateningly. “Just stay away from my mouth!” he snarled, glaring at him. the black sclera and pupils swamping the violet iris.

Carlos pulled back, startled at the venom in Cecil’s tone.

There was something wrong. Cecil had never been this aggressive before.

“Cecil. Something is wrong. Let’s go to a doctor,” he said with a worried look.

Cecil snarled wordlessly at him. “If it will get you to stop, fine,” he growled, and followed Carlos out of the apartment and to his car.

When they reached the hospital, Cecil’s skin had taken on an ashen tone, like his skin was in the process of turning black.

“Come on, sweetheart,” he crooned with a gentle smile at Cecil.

The transforming creature in the passenger seat snarled at him but obeyed sullenly.

Carlos lead him in with that same gentle smile, and Cecil was snarling the entire time.

The moment the nurse saw Cecil, her eyes widened. “What is - “

“I don’t know,” Carlos interrupted rapidly. “I don’t know what’s going on, and I don’t think he does either. It started a few days ago, he didn’t realize his eyes and teeth were strange. That happened three days. The fourth day, yesterday, he couldn’t change them back. This morning, he had tentacles and worse teeth, and his behavior is altered,” he said rapidly to the nurse. “I didn’t know where else to take him,” he added, looking up at the nurse helplessly. “I’m a microbiologist, not a medical doctor.”

The nurse nodded. “I think this is something for the police. Al!” she called, and a broad man in a balaclava came out.

“Yeah?” he asked, then saw Cecil. “Ah. Alright. I’ll take this from here,” he said firmly, gesturing for the nurse to leave.

Cecil just snarled at the officer, and moved closer to Carlos, who reached out to touch his shoulder gently.

With Carlos’ help, Cecil was taken to the abandoned mineshaft. Carlos watched helplessly as Cecil stalked around the room, glaring at anyone who passed by the window.

He didn’t know how to help Cecil.

\-----

The next day the Secret Police called Carlos in the lab.

“We can’t figure it out,” the officer stated bluntly.

Carlos sighed and leaned his head back. “I don’t know what I can do. Like I said. Microbiologist. Not strange eldritch being doctor,” he said, running his hand through his hair.

“Yes, but we can’t get near him to find out what is wrong. He nearly bit off the last officer’s fingers. We can tell you what to do, you just need to do it,” the officer said seriously.

Something was very wrong then. Cecil wouldn’t hurt anyone. “Alright. I’ll be there in a bit,” he agreed, then hung up sharply.

\-----

Carlos gasped when he saw Cecil. His entire form was black now, and he had six eyes, all of them narrow and violet. He was still stalking around the edge of the room, snarling and showing the sharp teeth and fangs that he hadn't let Carlos see before. His arms and legs were even starting to look wrong, too limp in his sleeves and pants. Even his hair had changed, now black and wriggling almost imperceptibly.

And the eight tentacles never stopped moving, twisting and writhing around each other.

“Dr. Carlos, we need to run a few tests. We can’t even get close without him lashing out at us,” the officer said with a frown at Carlos

Carlos nodded. “I am not sure if I will be able to help, but I will do what I can,” he said, and opened the door with a sigh.

Cecil turned to him and hissed, tentacles lashing, and Carlos raised his hands. “I just need to look at you, Cecil,” he said soothingly, and Cecil’s tentacles stopped moving, settling down to a subtle twitching as he let Carlos step closer.

“Dr. Carlos, just see if there’s anything strange on him,” the officer called from the door.

Carlos nodded, and stepped closer. The tentacles would be the last things he would check. If there was something causing this, it wouldn’t have been on them, as they hadn’t appeared until after Cecil had started acting oddly.

Cecil growled at him, but let him gently run his hands over Cecil’s body, checking for any anomalies.

He started to run his hands through Cecil’s hair, prompting an almost purr out of Cecil. His hair was strange though. It reminded Carlos more of cilia on bacteria than of human hair. His hands paused when they felt something abnormal.

A tiny, sharp lump on the back of his head. “I think I found something,” he called, and moved behind Cecil to examine it. He moved the cilia-like structures aside, and frowned. The tiny, pointed, square device on the back of Cecil’s head as he kept stroking the cilia-strands. Cecil’s eyes were closed, and he was purring gently, but the moment the officer stepped closer, his slitted nostrils flared and his eyes opened and he snarled, baring all of his teeth at the officer.

“Stay out. He’s calm now. I’ll be fine,” he ordered with a frown at the officer. The officer nodded and backed up again.

Cecil stared at the officer suspiciously for a moment, before succumbing to the gentle strokes again. His eyes slid shut again, and the purring resumed after a moment.

Carlos smiled, shaking his head slightly before moving to examine the tiny device. Cecil had always liked his hair stroked. His eyes picked out a tiny yellow S on the black device, and his smile slipped away.

Strexcorp. Of course.

“It’s at the base of his skull. It’s Strex. The logo on it is Strex’s. I’m guessing this is the reason why Cecil can’t control himself,” he said, loud enough for the officer to hear. “I think it’s electronic,” he added, and he prodded it, prompting a low growl from Cecil. “I think it’s attached deeper than the skin. I don’t think it’s possible to remove it without surgery,” he said, shaking his head slightly. It was blinking slightly.

“Can you deactivate it?” a new voice asked from the doorway.

Carlos looked over. “Sheriff,” he said by way of greeting. “We need an EMP generator. Non-specific, it’ll knock out all electronic in the blast radius. So we should probably move him to an area with nothing electronic nearby before we set it off.”

“Get to it then,” the Sheriff ordered.

Carlos looked up. “Sir?”

“Go make this generator. We don’t have one. We need one. So go make it,” the Sheriff said with a sigh.

“Sheriff. I’m a microbiologist. Not an engineer, or a physicist. I don’t _build_ things. I grow bacteria and examine them, and see how they work,” Carlos said, his eyes a little wide.

“You’ve been good enough at branching out. You figured out the shadow energy on your first date with him,” the Sheriff said, nodding towards the still purring Cecil.

Carlos stared at him. “It was a bacterial disease. A really weird bacterial disease, one that I’m fairly certain will only happen in Night Vale, but still just a bacteria spreading. It was simply a matter of determining the appropriate antibiotic for it and disseminating it,” he refuted, shaking his head slightly.

“Well then, since that was so easy but this isn’t, do we have an engineer or a physicist or someone who does build things?” the Sheriff asked patiently.

Carlos hesitated. Anton had just been swallowed by a sudden void the week before. “No, Sheriff, we don’t,” he said softly.

“Well then. You and your crew of scientists had better learn. You’ll have unblocked internet access to find what you need, and let us know what materials you need,” the Sheriff stated calmly before he turned away.

Carlos nodded, and moved around to the front of Cecil, and leaned up to kiss his forehead gently. Cecil bumped his forehead against Carlos’ affectionately, wrapping his tentacles around the scientist with a low croon.

Carlos hugged him back, running his hands down the center of Cecil’s back. “I have to go, darling,” he murmured, looking up at Cecil’s strange noseless face, pulling him in for another gently kiss, this time on the lips. “I love you, but I don’t think I’ll be able to see you again until I can fix you,” he said quietly, looking up at his now decidedly inhuman boyfriend.

Cecil made an unhappy noise and the tentacles tightened around him. Carlos shook his head. “No Cecil. I have to go,” he said, pulling away.

The tentacles and arms tightened around him for one more moment before they let him go, and Cecil let out a high-pitched whine that turned into a growl and then a snarl at Carlos.

Carlos had already turned away, tears standing out in his eyes. He already had his phone out and was calling the lab.

They were scientists. It was their job to be adaptable. And apparently he was the leader of this strange lab with chemists, biochemists, pathologists, botanists, geologist, and then him, a microbiologist. All of them with an interest in the weird, none of them with any experience with anything like this.

“Anna, no, shut up. Get to the computer, find a schematic for making an EMP generator.”

"A what? Carlos, none of us are engineers!"

“Yeah, I know, that’s what I told the Sheriff. We’re apparently the only ones here with a snowball’s chance in hell of making one that works. And we need it yesterday. So get on the damn computer and find me a schematic. I’ll explain more when I get there,” Carlos snapped harshly into the phone before hanging up as he climbed in his car.

It was going to be a long night.

He glanced behind him once more, wishing he could still be with that strange creature that was his boyfriend.

He had to fix him.

\-----

Carlos was on his fifth cup of coffee. It was nearly noon and he hadn’t slept more than a short nap since this mess had started. He hadn’t had time. He was too busy directing everyone in fabricating this thing and rereading documentation about his not-human boyfriend.

Six hours ago, he had gotten a call that Cecil was in the process of breaking out of the abandoned mineshaft, that he had completely shed any human semblance and seemed to absorb bullets and spit them back out.

Two hours ago, he had gotten a call that Cecil was loose and growing. Every half hour since, he got a status report on him. He was currently destroying the south part of Night Vale, and all the citizens in the area had been evacuated.

“How close are you to finishing that?” the Sheriff asked with a frown at Carlos.

Carlos looked up from screwing in one of the last screws in the EMP generator. “You asked for the damn near impossible, and you have it,” he said with a sigh. “I don’t know what the range is, just that it’s at least 100 feet in every direction, and whoever uses it will have to stand next to it for a short amount of time.” He dropped the screwdriver on the bench and flopped down in a nearby chair, wishing he had time for a short nap, that he was done.

He wished he didn’t know the outcome of this conversation already.

“Now we just have to figure out which poor sod is going to die taking it close enough to set it off,” the Sheriff said with a frown, obviously considering various people in his head.

Carlos shook his head. “I’m the only choice,” he corrected flatly, looking over at him. He did want to admit it, but it was true. No one else could do this. He wasn’t even sure if he could. Just that he had the best chance at succeeding.

“Carlos, I know that it’s Cecil, but that doesn’t mean - “ The Sheriff stopped when Carlos shook his head impatiently.

“Sheriff, it’s Cecil. He’s eaten anyone else that’s gotten within tentacle range, but it’s still Cecil in there. Remember when we were looking for that damn device? I only got growled at, and only for a moment, and he not only let me touch him, but he purred. I’m the one with the best chance of making him pause for long enough to get this thing set up. It’s not automatic. We don’t have _time_ to make it automatic. We’d need another few hours, and Cecil will have destroyed the town by then, including this lab. I’ll have to stand by it for a short amount of time. Half a minute, max,” he said, looking at the Sheriff.

The Sheriff looked displeased with this turn of events. “Carlos - “

“We only have one chance at this. This took us a most of a day to make as is. If Cecil eats it and the person holding it, we’re all dead. You would have to destroy Night Vale in order to do enough damage to him to kill him, and we both know it,” Carlos said quietly, looking at the Sheriff.

The Sheriff looked at Carlos levelly. “His voice can cause massive internal bleeding. We don’t know exactly how, but it weakens the vessels, causes them to rupture. And changing back hurts him. The moment that thing goes off, you get out of there as fast as you can. We’ll have a medical team there to get you fixed up,” he said, then paused. “Provided you don’t bleed out before you get there, which is more likely. Carlos, this is a suicide mission, you know that, right?”

Carlos nodded. Of course he knew that. How could he not know that? “I’ve read up on Cecil, you know that. I know my chances, but I also know that he loves me more than any other person in Night Vale right now, and that gives me the greatest chance of him pausing for the necessary time before eating me. We know the device is inhibiting his ability to keep his - his monstrous side back. If it’s someone that he has no emotional attachment to, then he will have no reason to try more than normal to resist eating them. If it’s someone he loves, he’ll try as hard as he fucking can to not eat me, to make sure I live,” _I hope,_ he thought.

“You hope,” the Sheriff said, voicing Carlos’ internal thoughts, but sighed. “You’re right. Do you have anything you want to do before you go?” he asked quietly.

Carlos paused. God, he was practically a dead man walking. If this worked, and he did die, Cecil would be alone, and, if he knew his love, would probably blame himself. And it wasn’t his fault. He just had to be able to tell Cecil this.

His eyes fell on the lab phone, and he considered it for a moment. That would work.

“Yeah, I do,” he said softly, and grabbed the lab phone before going to the back room and shutting the door.

He sank to the floor, leaning against the wall, the lab phone’s cord nearly stretched out as far as it could go. He stared at it, then sighed and picked it up. He dialed his own cell number, and waited for it to go to voicemail.

“Cecil, oh fuck, Cecil,” he started, then took a deep breath to compose himself. He had to do this, he couldn’t break down. He needed to say this to Cecil, to that sweet, sweet man that loved him so much that even when he was highly aggressive to everyone, he still held him gently and sweetly.

“Cecil, if you’re listening to this, then this worked, and I fixed you, and that I died when doing it. Cause otherwise I’ll get my phone back, and I’ll probably just delete this. Shit. I know my chances going into this. They’re slim at best. But if you’re listening to this, then it means it was worth it, cause the other option is destroying Night Vale to destroy you, and that is a last resort, nothing more. Cecil, I love you so much. So much. The best memories of my life are here, with you, and _fuck!_ ” Carlos surprised himself by nearly shouting the last.

“Cecil, it’s not fair. It’s not fucking fair.” He was surprised to feel tears dripping down his face. This wasn’t fair, not fair at all. “I’m thirty-fucking-one, Cecil, I’m supposed to be with you for decades! We’re supposed to wait another couple of years, get married in some crazy, over the top, Night Valean wedding, clean out one of the bedrooms, adopt a kid, and grow old. Well. I’ll grow old. I don’t know how long your life span is, so maybe this is just a foregone conclusion, me dying and leaving you alone. But still, I should be with you for decades, Cecil! Fuck!”

He lapsed into silence for a moment, then took a deep, shaking breath. He had to finish this before he had to go. He knew Cecil would need this if this worked and he wouldn’t be able to be there to give it to him.

“Now Cecil, I know you. Better than you know yourself sometimes. Don’t blame yourself. I know you will. You’ll blame yourself for all of this. You’ll blame yourself for eating those people, for killing me in whatever way you do, and you’ll say you didn’t fight hard enough, that you should have kept it back for longer. Don’t. You’ve done what you could, under impossible circumstances. The device is making it hard for you to resist doing that. You’ve done all you can. And if - “ he took another deep breath. “And if I die doing this, it isn’t your fault. I love you Cecil. I love you so much. You’ve done so much for me, you’ve saved me so many times, and you don’t even know it. It’s my turn now, my love.” He paused, lifting his head when the Sheriff opened the door. He knew what the broad man was going to say.

“He’s getting closer to the evacuation site. We have to go now,” the Sheriff said quietly.

Carlos nodded at him, then turned his attention back to the phone. “I have to go now, Cecil. Remember that I’ll always love you, no matter what happens. Goodbye, Cecil. I hope,” Carlos paused to wipe his eyes before continuing thickly. “I hope you have a good life without me, and I hope you find someone else to love, and Cecil just make this worth it. Goodbye, Cecil, goodbye.”

Carlos slammed the phone down, then wiped at his eyes and breathed deep through his mouth. He prayed that Cecil would hear it and do what he said. He just wanted Cecil to listen to him this one time.

His phone chimed quietly, alerting him to a new voicemail. He picked it up from his bench and handed it to the Sheriff. “That voicemail is for Cecil, if this works and I die. If it doesn’t work… just let it get destroyed,” he said quietly. If this didn’t work, he would die. Either Cecil would kill him in whatever creative way the universe wanted, or he would die in the process of killing Cecil.

He sighed heavily then started out to the EMP generator. It sat there, lovely and unassuming, and Carlos picked it up, and walked to the Sheriff’s car.

\-----

“Are you sure you want to do this, Carlos?” the Sheriff asked standing next to the blue helicopter he would be watching from.

“No, but I have to,” Carlos said, leaning down to make sure his shoes were tied tightly. He was going to have to run, and tripping over his shoelaces would be… embarrassing. “I’m going to get as close as I can, just to make sure that this works. The range should be enough to cover a decent amount of a block, but I want to be sure.”

The Sheriff nodded. “Alright. Good luck, Carlos. Try to come back to us,” he said quietly, then got in the helicopter and it lifted off.

Carlos was alone. This entire area had been evacuated, so it was just him and Cecil.

He turned towards Cecil and started to walk. He was close enough that he could save his energy by walking. He wasn’t really in that good of shape to begin with.

He swallowed his nerves, and shook his head as he walked towards Cecil.

He was walking to his death, more than likely.

He was terrified.

That terror increased dramatically when he was actually able to see Cecil. He stopped in his tracks, staring for a moment.

Cecil was huge. All void colored tentacles with violet eyes on them and a single mouth in the middle. It was hard to tell how tall he was, but each tentacle seemed to be on the magnitude of stories of a building, all radiating from the center.

Carlos took a deep, steadying breath, and started closer. He wanted to be within a hundred feet of Cecil. He knew it would work when it was that close. The device was probably in the center of the mass, inside all of the tentacles. He had to be sure that it would work.

He was within a few hundred feet when Cecil first noticed him. The eyes on his tentacles all stared at him, and he was making strange noises, almost like aborted roars.

He paused for one terrified moment before hurrying forward until he was practically close enough to touch Cecil. He decided to take the fact that he wasn’t being eaten as a good sign, and quickly started to run through the charging process of the generator.

Cecil was staying where he was, tentacles writhing even more than they had before, and Carlos knew, he just _knew_ , it was because of a private battle of ‘do I eat him, or do I not eat him’.

He stared at his watch as he waited the necessary fifteen seconds for it to charge to full capacity. They hadn’t even had time to install that timer.

He watched Cecil in his peripheral vision, watched the tentacles thrash and listened to the guttural noises of his internal battles for those critical seconds.

He slammed the discharge button, already turning to run as he did.

Cecil screamed and Carlos ran, ignoring the feeling of blood dripping down his face and the wet dampness he felt in his ears from the multitude of blood vessels breaking open.

It had to have worked if he was screaming like that. Cecil had said that it hurt changing back when he was this far gone. He was changing back, and Carlos was running and -

A heavy weight hit him high on his back. He felt bones shatter then an excruciating pain just under his shoulder blades and nothing beneath it. It was all numb.

The tentacle swept him off his feet and flung his limp body through the air. He closed his eyes tightly, knowing he was heading towards one of the wrecked buildings. As Cecil’s shrieks and screams tore through his head and body, he knew he was as good as dead.  

He slammed into brick and mortar, searing pain lancing through his upper chest and face, and fell hard to the sun-baked rubble below, knocking the breath from his lungs. He rolled heavily down the rubble, laying bleakly among the broken pieces of Night Vale.

But when he opened his eyes, through the faint red haze of blood in his left eye and the way his right didn’t quite want to focus through his broken glasses, he could see the black form of Cecil shrinking and diminishing. He smiled gently as his vision started to fade.

It had worked. He was dying, practically dead now, his blood a fluttering pulse through his arteries, veins, and capillaries, but it had worked. The Sheriff would give Cecil his phone, Cecil would grieve and hurt but he would also _live_ , and life in Night Vale would continue.

 _It was worth it,_ Carlos thought as his vision faded, and he closed his eyes


	2. Chapter 2

Cecil lifted his head with a groan. His head felt like it was about to split in two, and the rest of him ached as well. It didn’t help that he was lying in…

Rubble? And he was completely naked?

Oh.

He had lost control. Right. Something about a device… He could barely remember Carlos examining him with gentle hands running over his head and prodding at something

He lifted his hand and felt the back of his head. Sure enough, there was the small, sharp lump buried in his hair, right at the base of his skull.

He sat up as others came over, folding his legs to politely cover as much of his nakedness as he could. Intern Ashley was leading a few citizens and carrying a blanket, and Cecil smiled. This one could go far if she had survived this.

She silently handed him the blanket, and he was startled by the sorrow in her eyes as he wrapped it around himself. It made sense. No doubt he had accidentally killed a number of people. He scanned the faces surrounding her, noting similar notes of sadness and sorrow. All familiar, but none of them the one he wanted to see right now.

“Ashley, where is Carlos? I want to thank him for deactivating this thing,” he said, looking at her with a small smile because he remembered now. Staring down at Carlos while he was fiddling with a machine, and trying to figure out whether this human was food or not. Part of him roared that it was fresh meat walking to him, and another part screamed back that it was Carlos and that he was fixing this. That dilemma had given Carlos the time he needed, and all that he remembered after that was pain as he forced himself back into the form of a harmless human.

Ashley looked stricken. “Cecil…” she started, trailing off helplessly. Cecil was startled at the sheer anguish in that one word. Something was wrong. Something was horribly, terribly wrong.

“Ashley, where’s Carlos?” Cecil asked. No one looked like that if everything was alright. Ashley wouldn’t look like that if Carlos was alright. “Ashley! Tell me!” he demanded harshly when she hesitated for too long.

The intern shrank back, tears spilling from her eyes, and it was another person who pointed to another crowd of people. Cecil didn’t even notice who it was, opting instead to make his way to where he had pointed.

Carlos had to be alive. He had to be. Cecil was back, so Carlos had to be there. His perfect Carlos was here. He would be injured, inevitably, but it would not be life threatening. Or maybe it was life threatening, but Night Vale had amazing doctors and healers, everyone knew that. They could save him. Cecil knew they could and they would because he was Carlos.

“Carlos!” Cecil shouted when he got closer, skidding to a stop when he saw Carlos laying on the ground, and he knew he had been wrong. Carlos always seemed larger than he was, even while asleep. He was shy at times, and so tiny, barely standing taller than Cecil’s shoulder, but so alive. He filled a room with his presence alone. His chattering words and phrases dispelling any silences.

He seemed so small now, laid out at the base of a building.

“Carlos!” It was a scream this time. A plea for this to be a false image, a mirage, a hallucination, anything. So long as it wasn’t real.

He ran, not caring about the broken glass slicing his feet or the bloody footprints he was leaving. The crowd parted when he got there, and he fell next to his Carlos, heedless of the blanket as it fell around him.

Carlos’ glasses were broken, his face bloody from a nosebleed, the front of his labcoat stained with blood from his face and wounds. There were still some pieces of glass in the wounds that peppered his front. One had gone straight through his ribcage, and although it was removed now, the blood and the _hole_ still remained.

Cecil didn’t even realize he was murmuring anguished denials of his own sight until he felt a hand on his shoulder.

“From what we could tell, it was an accident,” the Sheriff said quietly. “Carlos guessed that there was still enough of you in there that you wouldn’t attack him like you did everyone else you saw. And he was right. You didn’t attack and didn’t leave. It gave him the time he needed. But when you were convulsing, a tentacle hit him from behind and threw him into a building. Some broken window glass must have lodged in the wall. He bled out before we could get here. I’m sorry, Cecil.”

“You should have saved him! What good are you all if you couldn’t save him!” Cecil shrieked, all composure lost. This was _Carlos_. He had saved the town on so many occasions. He had gone beyond what he had needed to do, saving Night Vale from so many things that would have destroyed it. Including himself.

He pulled the impossibly small, battered body against himself, straightened the broken glasses on the still, bruised and bloody face, and let himself scream.

\-----

Cecil finally decided to open the bag of Carlos’ things. He had ended up spending the last couple days in a stupor, ever since he had returned from the hospital. They had removed the deactivated device and given him some pills for the physical pain.

There was nothing anyone could do about any of the other pain he was feeling. That pain was still making itself known.

The bag crinkled as he opened it, and he gently dumped the items on the ground. Most of them were normal Carlos things: pens, a few folded bits of paper, a couple crumpled receipts, no doubt from the pockets of his ubiquitous lab coat (one from from Arby’s, just a few nights before this started), his wallet and… his phone?

Cecil’s brows drew together in muddled confusion. Carlos rarely kept his phone on him. It was one of the things that made Cecil roll his eyes about Carlos, one of those imperfections that made him Carlos. It didn’t make sense that he would have it on him when he was - when he was saving Cecil.

He picked up the phone, and felt a piece of paper on the back. He flipped it over, and saw the sticky note.

_“Cecil -_

_The voicemail is for you._

_-S”_

Why had the Sheriff had Carlos’ phone? He frowned and thought about it for a moment before it fell into place.

Carlos had given the Sheriff his phone to pass on to Cecil.

The red light was slowly blinking, indicating a low battery, so Cecil stood and went in to the kitchen, sitting on the counter and plugging in the phone.

He quickly navigated to the voicemail, pausing before hitting play. He hoped it was Carlos. He thought it was Carlos. It had to be Carlos.

 _“Cecil, oh fuck, Cecil,”_ Carlos started, and Cecil could hear the anguish in the second part, before Carlos stopped for a moment. He started again, _“Cecil, if you’re listening to this, then this worked, and I fixed you, and that I died when doing it. Cause otherwise I’ll get my phone back, and I’ll probably just delete this. Shit. I know my chances going into this. They’re slim at best. But if you’re listening to this, then it means it was worth it, cause the other option is destroying Night Vale to destroy you, and that is a last resort, nothing more. Cecil, I love you so much. So much. The best memories of my life are here, with you, and_ fuck! _”_

Cecil was surprised at the volume at the end, and wiped the tears from his eyes, but they just kept coming. They wouldn’t stop. He couldn’t make them stop.

 _“Cecil, it’s not fair. It’s not fucking fair.”_ The harshness to Carlos’ tone hurt, despite his attempts to not let it. Carlos had known he was probably going to die after he left this message. No doubt he was blaming Cecil for this misfortune.

 _“_ _I’m thirty-fucking-one, Cecil.”_ He had forgotten how young Carlos was. Now he would never get older.

 _“I’m supposed to be with you for decades! We’re supposed to wait another couple of years, get married in some crazy, over the top, Night Valean wedding, clean out one of the bedrooms, adopt a kid, and grow old.”_ His voice was thick with emotion, and it didn’t help the tears running down Cecil’s face _“Well. I’ll grow old. I don’t know how long your life span is, so maybe this is just a foregone conclusion, me dying and leaving you alone. But still, I should be with you for decades, Cecil! Fuck!”_

Cecil hadn’t even bothered to stop the tears running down his face when Carlos paused, just let them drip down. He had been so sure Carlos was going to rail at him for being the cause of his death. Instead, he lamented the time they were never going to have together.

Carlos took a shaking breath before continuing _“Now Cecil, I know you. Better than you know yourself sometimes. Don’t blame yourself.”_ Cecil let out a gasping sob, pressing his free hand over his mouth.

He should have known. Carlos, his Carlos, would have never blamed him. How could he have forgotten that?

 _“I know you will. You’ll blame yourself for all of this. You’ll blame yourself for eating those people, for killing me in whatever way you do, and you’ll say you didn’t fight hard enough, that you should have kept it back for longer.”_ How did Carlos know? How did he know that those were his thoughts? That those were the thoughts that had made him drink himself to sleep last night?

 _“Don’t.”_ Cecil clung to the phone, trying to breathe through the tears. _“You’ve done what you could, under impossible circumstances. The device is making it hard for you to resist doing that. You’ve done all you can. And if - “_ Carlos took another deep breath in the message, and Cecil just sobbed. _“And if I die doing this, it isn’t your fault. I love you Cecil. I love you so much. You’ve done so much for me, you’ve saved me so many times, and you don’t even know it. It’s my turn now, my love.”_

Cecil shook his head. “Carlos,” he moaned as the Sheriff’s voice came in the background of the message.

_“He’s getting closer to the evacuation site. We have to go now.”_

“Carlos, don’t. I’m not worth it!” Cecil cried into the phone, begging Carlos to hear him through time, wishing this was a phone call and not just a voicemail.

_“I have to go now, Cecil.”_

“No!” Not yet. Just give me a few more minutes of your voice. I just need more of you. I need you to come back. “Don’t go!”

 _“Remember that I’ll always love you, no matter what happens. Goodbye, Cecil. I hope - I hope you have a good life without me, and I hope you find someone else to love, and Cecil just make this worth it. Goodbye, Cecil, goodbye.”_ There was a hard click, and the message was over.

Cecil screamed, he couldn’t help it. The loss and guilt that he had started to push back was standing at the forefront again, tearing a hole through his chest.

There would never be anyone else, his life couldn’t be good again, there was nothing that anyone could do that would make this better. His Carlos was gone, and he had killed him.   Even though some of the guilt had been absolved by Carlos’ words, there was still enough to rip through his soul.

It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair that he had lashed out in his pain and had killed his dear Carlos. It wasn’t fair that Carlos had been the one to go. He had been right, he was the only one Cecil would have fought that hard for. There was no one like Carlos in the world.

And now there wasn’t even him.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Please feel free to let me know what you thought about this, either in the comments or on my blog [here!](silvanuyx.tumblr.com)


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